Long Live
by xotashxo
Summary: Seventh Year is the hardest year at Hogwarts, subject-wise. Throw in some friendship drama, romance, and a war brewing outside the walls that is affecting everyone inside of them, the year gets even harder.
1. prologue

**First Year, 1971-72**

Lily was nervous. She was also extremely excited, but immensely nervous. She had been sorted into Gryffindor, and while that wasn't a bad thing, the only person she knew, her best friend, Sev, had been sorted into Slytherin. And she had heard that no one really liked the Slytherins and there was a particularly intense rivalry between the snakes and the lions.

She had wanted to make friends, not lose them. Not that she was going to lose Sev. She wouldn't let anything as stupid as a house rivalry get in the way of their friendship. She just hoped that wouldn't limit the amount of friends she would make.

The girls in her dorm were nice enough, though she didn't really know them. Marlene McKinnon, Dorcas Meadowes, Mary Macdonald and Emmeline Vance were really nice girls, but it had only been a week and getting used to all the magic was taking up most of her concentration. Lily didn't think that she would ever get used to it.

So far, all of her classes had been with the Ravenclaws, and Potions was proving to be her favourite, and her best, subject. She had been paired with a fellow muggle-born Ravenclaw by the name of Elizabeth Rogers, who seemed to be Lily's first magical friend (aside from Sev, of course - but she's not counting him because she became friends with him before Hogwarts).

She was alright at Transfiguration, after sitting next to a bespectacled by named James Potter who seemed to be quite exceptional at it. He was funny and he seemed nice, and his friend Sirius always seemed to be making jokes and messing around. She could tell that they were going to be the class clowns, she just hoped magical pranks were no more harmful than ordinary ones.

 **Second Year, 1972-73**

Lily had a bit of a hard time adjusting the first week back at Hogwarts. She had spent the summer with her family at home in Cokeworth, enduring her sister's icy attitude towards her, and occasionally hanging out with Sev at the park. She had written lots of letters to her group of friends; Marlene, Dorcas, Elizabeth and a Ravenclaw by the name of Beatrice Mitchell who shared a dorm with Elizabeth.

However, she had also spent her summer trying not to think she was crazy. Petunia called her numerous names over the sunny months, but 'freak' stuck out in her mind.

The rivalry between Gryffindor and Slytherin hadn't gotten any better, and while none of her friends seemed too bothered by her and Sev's friendship, once she'd explained how they had become friends, she could see that Sev's friends weren't happy with their friendship.

Her second year was the year she found out about the blood supremacy that certain witches and wizards harboured. It was the first time that someone had called her a mudblood, but, as she had no idea what that word meant, it didn't affect her, as intended. It did, however, affect multiple people around her, including a, usually tame, boy by the name of Matt Wilson, a Gryffindor in the year above her, who was quick to hex the perpetrator, landing himself in detention with an angry Professor McGonagall. Though, once she heard why he felt the need to hex the Slytherin responsible, McGonagall was less angry. he still had to serve the detention though. Marlene explained to her later that some witches and wizards, who call themselves 'purebloods' believe that magic should not be tainted with muggle blood, and so their blood is pure because they are descended from witches and wizards. Then, there is what is called a 'half-blood', muggle blood mixed with magical blood. Finally, there are muggleborns, who are magical but aren't descended from any witch or wizard. The term 'mudblood' is considered derogatory in the Wizarding Community.

Later, she found Sev, who promised her that, no matter what, he wouldn't let anyone call her that again. She smiled, albeit a bit sadly, because she knew, despite his efforts, there would be no way of stopping everyone who felt that way about muggleborns.

 **Fifth Year, 1975-76**

 _"I don't need help from filthy little Mudbloods like her!"_ *

The one thing that made it all worse, was that the use of the slur didn't even affect her. She'd long since steeled herself against any insults, because she knew that if she reacted then they'd get exactly what they wanted. What affected her, was that he'd promised not to let anyone call her that. And while they both knew he'd fail at that impossible task, she hadn't ever considered that he'd be one of the people who use that slur. It shouldn't have surprised her, she knew the kind of people he was hanging around with, but she couldn't help but wish that her friend, from before Hogwarts, was still there.

After that incident, despite his many efforts at reconciliation, Lily never forgave him. She may have considered it, if he hadn't been caught hexing other muggleborns with his friends. She didn't want to be the exception to his twisted logic.

Strangely enough, after losing one friend, she seemed to gain four new ones, in the shape of the group who had taken to calling themselves the Marauders. James Potter seemed to realise what he had done to Severus was wrong, and was attempting to be a better person. It didn't always work, but Lily had always appreciated when someone had put in some effort. He still asked her out, but she found his attempts amusing, even if she did still refuse.


	2. chapter 1

**September 1st, 1977.**

Going back to Hogwarts was something Lily was both looking forward to and dreading this year. She had missed the castle, and the magic, because even though she was of age, living in a muggle village meant that she had little occasion to do any magic. It was, however, her last year at Hogwarts, and she knew that the workload was going to increase, a lot, especially considering that she was Head Girl as well.

That had come as a shock to her. She hadn't expected to get Head Girl, and she also really hadn't expected James Potter to get Head Boy. She had built a tentative friendship with him since fifth year; they still didn't get along completely, but they were nice enough to each other. Still, that didn't mean it was going to be easy working with him.

She had spent the last week of summer staying with Lizzie at her parent's house on the outskirts of London. She had been doing that for the past couple of years, to save the Evans the drive down to London to see her off at Kings Cross Station. Plus, Petunia and her whale of a boyfriend Vernon were staying with her parents, and Tuney had made it abundantly clear that she didn't want Lily anywhere near the house when Vernon was staying there.

* * *

Saying goodbye to Mr and Mrs Rogers, Lizzie and Lily boarded the train, with the goal of finding an empty compartment to wait for their friends. Instead, they stumbled across Marlene sitting with Dorcas, so decided to join them, whilst waiting for Bea.

Hugs were exchanged, and summer stories were recounted dramatically. Dorcas, ever the romantic, told them about her summer romance with a muggle in Paris - _"It was magical, finding love in the city of love"_ \- and Marlene told them all about her budding romance with Sirius Black. _**That**_ had started last year. Lily was shocked to find out that Marlene, her beautiful blonde best friend, was the first girl Sirius Black had ever actually wanted to seriously date. Lily had been skeptical, because Black had a reputation, but 8 months later and they were still going strong. There had been fights, tears, lots of times that Lily had wanted to hex him for hurting her friend, but he had seemed as broken as she was, and it was evident that they were better, _happier_ , together.

Marlene teased Lily over her ongoing correspondence with Matt Wilson, because Marly was convinced that he liked her and therefore they should go out. She had been going on about it since second year, when he hexed a Slytherin who had called Lily a mudblood, as getting worked up about the slur meant that he was defending Lil'ys honour. Lily had tried to point out that he did the same for anyone else that was called a mudblood, but to no avail: Marly was stubborn.

5 minutes before the train arrived, Bea found their compartment, cursing them all because she had spent 10 minutes trying to find them. Lily and Dorcas had the courtesy of trying to hide their giggles, while Lizzie and Marly exploded into laughing fits. When the train started moving and they had calmed down, they carried on discussing their summer antics, and what they expected of this year at Hogwarts, carefully skirting around the topic of the war because that was too heavy a subject for an early morning.

* * *

The prefect meeting went better than Lily expected. Potter was actually professional, something Lily didn't think she'd ever seen before, except when it came to Quidditch. Snape had spent the meeting glaring at Potter and then glancing at her, evidently unhappy with the turn of events. She didn't care though; their friendship was a thing of the past, expecially seeing as he insisted on hanging around with wannabe Death Eaters.

She walked back to her compartment with Remus and Potter, because they were likely to find Black there with Marlene. They'd guessed right: whilst they were in the prefect meeting, Sirius had stolen her place next to Marlene and they were currently making out, to the chagrin of everyone else in the compartment.

* * *

After finally disentangling Marlene and Sirius, the nine students discussed the upcoming year.

"Its going to be too much work!" Bea exclaimed.

"Wow, really? I thought it would be a walk in the park." Lily retorted, laughing as Bea stuck her tongue out at her.

"At least it should prepare us for next year, when we leave Hogwarts. The real world is going to be even more work than school." Peter chipped in.

"I want to do something to help, when I'm done with school," Lily leaned against the window. "Either become a healer or an auror. I want to do my part in this absurd war that's going on."

"Hear hear." Marlene agreed.

"Honestly, I don't want any part of this war. I wish it wasn't happening. War is so stupid. We don't need anymore people dying." Lizzie crossed her arms over her chest, her curly black hair falling on her face. "Its all so stupid, anyway. We don't need another war caused by discrimination. It happened in America, but that's not stopped racism, has it?"

"We can't decide whether or not this war is going to occur. Its going to happen. You Know Who is targeting muggleborns and blood traitors, trying to take control of the wizarding world. We can't prevent him from trying, because he's already started. What we can do, is choose to fight him and prevent him from achieving his goals. If we all stand by and watch, its just going to get worse." Remus replied. A moment of silence followed his words, as it sunk in and everyone mulled it over.

"I can see the castle!" Sirius broke the silence.

"We better get into our robes." Dorcas shooed the boys from the compartment, so that the girls could get changed.

* * *

Lily rode in a carriage with Dorcas, Lizzie and Bea, while Marly opted for sharing one with Sirius. They had planned on getting one to themselves, but had no such luck, as Mary and Emmeline joined them for the ride up the castle.

The feast was as grand as usual, and as delicious, and at the end of the meal, when the prefects were directing the first years to the common rooms, Dumbledore requested a quick meeting with Lily and James.

"Congratulations on becoming the Heads," The elder wizard started, his eyes twinkling. "I only have one matter to discuss with you. The Head Boy and Girl have their own common room, attached to their own dormitories."

Lily and James looked at each other disbelievingly, then followed Professor Dumbledore, as he directed them to their new dorms.

"The password for now is 'bezoar' but you can change it when and if you choose. Your personal belongings are already inside. Enjoy." The Professor smiled almost cheekily at the pair, then walked away to his own office.

Sharing a common room with James Potter. This year was _definitely_ going to be interesting.


	3. Chapter 2

**September 5th, 1977**

Elizabeth Rogers hated Mondays. Mondays meant the end of the weekend, and, when she was younger, had meant the day she had to start the school week all over again. At Hogwarts, it simply meant she had to go to classes.

Elizabeth considered herself a strong, intelligent woman. Even before being placed in Ravenclaw, she was considered very smart; she excelled at school, particularly in Maths and English, and had always been interested in subjects that were considered challenging for kids of her age to understand. For example, she took a great interest in politics and world history, and spent a lot of time reading novels and non-fiction books.

She believed that she had always been strong, because she had always had to steel herself from insults. Her mum had brought her up, teaching her not to let the horrible comments get her down, and her dad had taught her how to punch, just in case the need ever arose. Being a young woman, it was likely that people were going to put her down, and say that she wouldn't be able to do things as well as men. Being a young black woman, meant that people were prejudiced against her because of her skin colour and her gender; racism was something her parents had raised her to expect, but not to stand for.

No one had told her about the prejudice against muggleborns.

She had found that out from Lily in second year, after a particularly nasty Slytherin had called Lily a _mudblood_. Finding out that, yet again, people were prejudiced against her because of something she couldn't change was a shock.

The slur _mudblood_ didn't really bother her. She'd heard worse slurs. It was the principle of it. Hating someone because their parents were muggles, instead of wizards. It was absurd.

She tied her hair up into a messy bun, and sighed at herself in the mirror, as she noticed bags were already forming under her eyes, and she hadn't even been here a week. This damn war was taking its toll already, and she hadn't even left school.

She picked up her messenger bag, slung it over her shoulder, and headed down to breakfast.

* * *

 _ **Well, that's a lovely thing to see first thing in the morning.**_ Beatrice thought as she turned a corner on her way to breakfast and stumbled across Marlene and Sirius sucking each others faces off. Lily loved this sort of stuff, _young love_ and all that jazz, but Bea thought it was all a bit too much for a Monday morning. Couldn't they wait until _after_ breakfast to showcase their affection?

Maybe she was just being too cynical. Lizzie often told her she had a pessimistic view on the world. Bea liked to think it was realistic. If you don't expect much, you can't get too disappointed. Sarcasm was Bea's first line of defense, always had been, always would be. Everyone had their thing. Lizzie was smart and strong, Lily was hard-working and witty, Marlene was thoughtful and optimistic, and Bea, well, Bea was sarcastic and cynical.

She had always had a pessimistic - no, _realistic_ \- view of the world, at least that she could remember, but the current war waging in their world was making her even more despondent. She hadn't exactly admitted it out loud, to anyone, including Lizzie, but she really didn't see how on earth they were going to win this. The threat seemed to big for them to handle.

She shook her head, as if it would clear the negative thoughts from her head ( _it didn't_ ) and sat down next to Lizzie at the Ravenclaw table in the Great Hall.

"Did you hear about this?" Robert Young, a Ravenclaw seventh year, sat down opposite them, showing them the latest edition of the Prophet. Lizzie grabbed it straight away as she read the headline, Bea peering over her shoulder to read it at the same time.

 **DEATH EATER ATTACK ON MUGGLE OFFICES, 8 DEAD, MORE INJURED.**

If the headline shocked Lizzie, she didn't show it on her face. It certainly didn't shock Bea. It was terrible, truly terrible, but this war had made them all grow accustom to terrible things, and anyone who was still getting shocked at tragedies at this stage in the game was simply naive.

Lizzie kept reading, her face betraying no emotion though Bea noticed her body had tensed up. Noticing that the Hall was almost empty, Bea nudged Lizzie slightly.

"Liz, I think we'd better get to class." She said softly. Lizzie nodded, picked up her bag, and the two of them walked silently to Defense Against The Dark Arts.

* * *

Lily was angry. Extremely angry. She couldn't currently _do_ anything about it, so she kept conjuring up mannequins to completely blow to smithereens. It wasn't hurting anyone, and it helped her get rid of some of her frustration. That is, until James Potter walked in on her doing it in their shared common room and burst out laughing.

"Damn it, I knew I should have done it in my dormitory." She muttered, under her breath.

"And what exactly is it that you're doing?" He asked, while she cursed his exceptional hearing.

"Conjuring mannequins to blow them to pieces." She mumbled, unable to look him in the eye.

Before he could reply, she added, "I know it sounds stupid and probably looks really stupid as well but I'm just so angry about what was in the Prophet this morning and it could have been someone I know that died and I wish I could do more but for now the only thing I could think of to get rid of my frustration was to hex something and I'm Head Girl so I can't hex another student so I have to settle for inanimate objects." She clapped a hand over her mouth as soon as she had finished speaking, not completely able to believe that she had just spewed verbal vomit and the recipient had been James Bloody Potter.

Potter still looked like he wanted to laugh at her, but his eyes had softened at the revelation that she was doing this because she was frustrated that she couldn't do more to help in the war.

"Well I'm bloody glad that's the reason. I figured you'd gone back to hating me and you were practising which hexes you were going to use on me next." He flashed her a grin.

She huffed out a laugh, which turned into full-blown giggles. James started laughing again too, as he'd long since realised that Lily Evans' laugh was very infectious.

* * *

Peter decided that the dorm room was incredibly dull without James.

Sure, Sirius was still crazy, but without James in the room, he'd sort of dulled, too. It was like he needed his best friend there to be crazy with him, otherwise there was no point. Peter couldn't be crazy with him, even if he tried. It just wasn't in his nature. Nor Remus, who liked reading his books far too much to ever participate in Sirius and James' antics in their dorms.

They had all known that this year was going to be different. Harder, especially with the war getting worse outside of the castle walls. But Peter hadn't expected to see much of a change, so quickly. Their little group had been split up, when James had gotten his own dorm. Of course, they were all happy for him, especially since he was now sharing a common room with Lily Evans, but they all keenly felt his absence from the dorm. It just wasn't the same without him.

* * *

At around 10 PM, James idly wandered out of his dorm room into his new common room, eager for a change of scenery. His dorm was too quiet without his best mates.

He didn't notice that Lily was sat on the settee until he almost walked into it, his mind somewhere else.

"Whatcha doing?" He asked, curious and eager for a way to fill the silence that was gnawing at him. He wasn't used to it being so quiet. "You're not planning on blowing anything else up, are you?"

Lily laughed, and James had to hide his surprise at making her laugh two times in one day.

"No, I'm just practising my knows that if I'm going to fail any NEWT subject its going to be Transfiguration."

"Lily Evans, fail a school subject?" James scoffed. "Never gonna happen."

Lily laughed again. When he was in fifth year, when he had started fancying Lily Evans, he had kept a tally of the times he had heard her laugh. He loved her laugh, it was light and lilting, and to James' ears, it was perfect. Unfortunately for him, he hadn't heard it often. Whenever she had laughed at one of their pranks, he decided that those pranks were their best ones, far better than the ones that seemed to make her hate him. During sixth year, after they had struck up a friendship of sorts, James got to hear her laugh far more often. He wasn't usually the one _making_ her laugh, but at least he was privy to the elusive, perfect sound that was Lily Evans' laugh. After reaching 97 times he'd heard her laugh, James had stopped counting. He preferred to say he'd heard her laugh countless times than to give an exact number, because countless gave the impression that he'd heard it an infinite amount of times, and would hear it an infinite amount more.

"Well, what are you doing? Up to no good as usually?" She teased him.

"Excuse me, Miss Evans! I'll have you know, I've been nothing but perfectly behaved my whole life." James pretended to be offended. "Excluding the past seventeen years, that is." He added, giving her a wink as he sat down next to her.

She laughed again, and James decided then and there that he didn't care what happened to him during this war, as long as Lily Evans survived to laugh that perfect little laugh for an eternity.


End file.
